Housing day is one of my favorite days of our curriculum. It was our last full day of camp with the 13-14 year old group, and we focused most of the day on the right to housing. We spent the morning doing a service project with the Fuller Center for Housing helping repair a porch for a neighbor.

After lunch we had a discussion about how some people’s gifts lead them to work on building justice in their neighborhood and other people’s gifts and talents lead them to work on building justice between groups or countries by doing international work. We had 3 world maps around the room and a tall stack of expired passports from folks who have travelled to do work that builds peace in other countries. Each passport was labelled with what kind of work that person was doing, and campers spent a while looking at stamps and finding countries on the map. Most campers had never seen a passport before. We added two outside voices to our discussion. Becky Acton spoke about her work on housing with Habitat for Humanity, and Muireann Brennan shared with us (via Skype) about her travels working on healthcare issues around the world.

After that we headed to the Global Village at Habitat for Humanity in Americus. Campers learned about housing issues around the world and received a pretend passport. Then we walked through a very powerful replica of slum housing. As you follow the path, the slum housing ends and the walking tour brings you to house after house modelling how Habitat houses might look in various countries. Campers stamped their passports in each house, and finally at the end we did an activity to talk about some of the features of the different houses.

After supper and free time back at the farm, we switched our focus to people’s right to participate in culture and the arts by attending a workshop on peacebuilding through the arts. Several Koinonia community members joined us in the workshop facilitated by Art as an Agent for Change. (Check out the blog post AAC put up with a link to some great photos from the event.) We had a great time thinking about how our creativity can help bring about peace and justice.

Afterward we relaxed at the campfire with s’mores and then had our final closing circle. Our wall of peacebuilders we add to each night has gotten pretty big now! Looking forward to completing it tomorrow…

More photos below!

Our group of campers ready to help repair a porch on a neighbor’s home

Volunteering is fun (especially when you get to use tools)!

Teamwork helps get that porch fixed

Installing the new porch!

All 3 of these Burundi campers were born in refugee camps in Tanzania and wanted their picture taken at the Tanzania house! They taught their fellow campers a lot about Tanzania and even some Kirundi words.

Campers love the open roof on the India House at the Habitat Global Village

Brainstorming about Peace at the Art as an Agent for Change workshop

The sun sets on the last day of camp while we spent time with Art as an Agent for Change

Campers did a great job keeping our living quarters clean with their chore crews this week

Looking at passports of peacemakers who have traveled the world doing good work

Campers check out the rooms of the slum housing in the Habitat for Humanity Global Village